Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Circuits' long-term crisis of volume?

U.S. appeals courts’ ability to deal with increased caseloads can differ greatly, at times negatively impacting the quality of legal review within certain circuits, a law professor contended in a recent academic paper that suggested an overhaul of the system may be in order.
The Second and Ninth circuits have demonstrated that their diverging values on procedure have prompted them to respond differently to large influxes of cases, with the potentially harmful result being a court system that administers justice in “significantly different ways ... in what is supposed to be a uniform federal system,” according to a paper published in the most recent volume of Stanford Law & Policy Review.

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the Second Circuit reduced its reversal rate, while the Ninth Circuit did not. Instead, judges in the Ninth Circuit dissented less but published more cases and held more oral hearings.
Additionally, the Second Circuit took almost three months longer to decide cases when compared to the time it took before the influx of cases, while there was no such change in disposition time in the Ninth Circuit.
“This divergence between courts of appeals implies, in essence, that similar cases, which are filed in different circuits, receive different appellate review,” the paper said.